Spend Drone Consumer, Spend (Charge, too)!

Today (May 16, 2005), on Your World w/Neil Cavuto, during a roundtable discussion about the state of the economy, Cavuto's guests told some tall, tall tales and some cold, sad truths.

Linda Duessel was the first guest to speak about the "improving trends." She spoke like a true corporatist when she said she thought the declining oil prices and the retail sales numbers were "good news, it hits the consumers' pocketbooks for sure and especially the ones we're worried about, the lower income cohorts, those are the ones that we've got to watch for and make sure the price of oil stays down so they can keep shopping."

(Comment: You know, that's all the "powers that be" really want from we citizens, isn't it? They don't want to hear from us about what the President, or congress or corporations are doing. They just want us to take our credit cards to the mall and to shop and to otherwise shut up.)

Lakshman Achuthan said the economy's looking good because incomes have been able to "largely, completely outpace the rise in energy prices" except for in some lower income groups. He said the recent $10.00 decline in oil makes it higher than it was in 2000, "so what's different is we're making much more money than, we're actually, the increase in the energy price, even though that increase in energy price is a drag, and in particular on the lower income, overall, for the overall US economy, our incomes are actually rising quite a bit faster, and they're overwhelming the rise in energy prices." (Comment: This study was released last week: Real Wages Fall at Fastest Rate in 14 Years. For someone who advises clients on the future of the economy and Wall Street not to know about this seems to me to be either a sign of incompetence or negligence.)

Cavuto asked if what seem to be good fundamentals will last for an extended period, and Gary B. Smith said traditionally we see a "pump up" in gas prices during the summer months but "SUV sales have not gone down, they've remained about level, people are just switching to the smaller SUVs." (Comment: Maybe so but Detroit's still hurting, industries and communities connected to the auto industry are still hurting and workers are still hurting!) Smith said he sees "the overall economy as just fine."

Cavuto wondered whether it would be "an issue" if oil went to $60.00 a barrel and "stayed there." Duessel said "we are far less reliant on oil than we were, if you remember in the 70's when we were sitting in those long lines, as a percentage of our income it's less of a hit to us." (Comment: Do you believe we're less reliant on oil now? I don't.) Duessel said that "if we are employed and if we are working then we are going to be spending money and that's good for the economy." (Spend, drone citizen, spend!)

Achuthan said mortgage rates are low and the housing market is still strong which "makes people feel wealthier and they're going to continue spending." (Charge it!)

Smith ended the discussion by saying that if people "are employed and they're making money, they're going to be traveling, they're going to be buying." (Will that be cash or charge?) Smith said he liked "the action today" (on Wall Street) and he hoped that instead of "trailing off through October," the market has a good summer.

Comment: Isn't this a perfect example of what we viewers get when corporate/GOP television airs an alleged "discussion" about the state of the economy?

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